The Rosary: Simplicity and Complexity
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“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17).
Jesus’s mission on Earth was a mission of love. Jesus tells us in St. John’s Gospel, God sent His only Son into the world to save the world because of His love for the world. The love of which I write is the Father’s love for His Creation despite its sinfulness and the love of the Son for the Father and for His Creation.
On Good Friday, their love confronted our sins and the evils of this world. Their love endured incomprehensible suffering for us and our salvation. The world nailed their love to the Cross and killed their love but it could not defeat their love nor destroy it. Sin and evil put their love in a tomb but it could not keep their love there. On Good Friday, we see just how far their love would go to save us from our sins, from evil and from death itself.
On Easter Sunday, we see how their love triumphed over evil, sin and death. The tomb that was occupied on Good Friday was empty on Easter Sunday because the tomb could not contain their love. On Easter Sunday, we see how their love burst forth from the tomb.
Their love shines forth on Easter Sunday and everyday since then.
So what are we to do in response to their love? Jesus tells us exactly what we should do.
In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (22:37-29)
Then in St. John’s Gospel, Jesus says “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)
Bryan J. Dickerson is an author and historian specializing in military and naval history, and Catholicism. He earned his BA in History from Rowan University (NJ), MA in American History from Monmouth University (NJ) and a graduate Certificate in Archival Studies from Louisiana State University. His writings have appeared online and in print in such publications as Columbia (the magazine of the Knights of Columbus) and Celebrate Life (the magazine of the American Life League). He is a 4th Degree member of the Knights of Columbus and a Past Grand Knight of a council in New Jersey. His book The Liberators of Pilsen: the U.S. 16th Armored Division in World War II Czechoslovakia was published by McFarland Books in 2018 and his book Dive Bomber Down: James A. Nist Naval Aviator in the Pacific War is now available from McFarland Books. He has also self-published sixeen books, including In the Name of COVID: The Assault on Religious Freedom in 2020. A former U.S. Navy Reserve Religious Program Specialist 1st Class (Fleet Marine Force), he mobilized and deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom twice. He and his wife Lisa have four children and live in southern New Jersey.
